Yesterday, I said I really didn’t want to comment further on Lennon but one thing niggles at me; this contention of his that ten in a row was “an obsession” and not a very healthy one either.
I find that claim frankly astonishing, and utterly divorced from reality.
Lennon has clearly decided he’s had enough of Glasgow and Scotland.
He sees himself living in England permanently, and starring on the TV down there a lot. The piece was also clearly designed to absolve him of any blame whatsoever for the mess of our club.
In short, Lennon seems not to care any longer about his relationship with the fans.
He perhaps now understands what others are still struggling to; that the scars of last season are probably permanent, that there is no way any of those involved will get absolution.
Some of those people still believe they can turn this around, although the mess they’ve made of finding a manager only multiplies the anger we felt towards them already. At least Lennon is under no illusions about this stuff. He’s decided to embrace the opportunity, to burn the last of the bridges and stay on the other side of the river.
In a way, I find it almost commendable.
It’s the re-writing of history that I find hard to stomach.
I know Lennon is never going to take any personal responsibility for all this, because he’s proved that already with his arrogance in front of the media, but he really shouldn’t get away with some of what he said the other day.
He doesn’t care what stick comes his way now, but that’s no reason to stay silent.
This contention about the “unhealthy” ten in a row obsession is one of the things he needs to be called out on.
If it was an obsession, it was one shared by the whole club, Lennon included.
Enough of his comments about it are on the record to make that clear, but it was there in the club’s merchandising for last season, their season ticket pitch, the way they retained the squad … it was even there in the signing up of Lennon himself, as someone who “got it.”
Lennon never hid his own desire to be the manager who completed the circle, which he was fond of reminding people he started in the first place. The reason our rebuild is so large this season is that the club itself deliberately held back a lot of stuff an extra year so that we could get ten over the line.
The media knows all this, which is why even The Daily Record came out swinging on behalf of the fans yesterday, reminding Lennon of some of his own statements.
Everyone at Celtic was fully focussed on the ten. Lawwell and others had hoped that it would be their crowning glory, the legacy they left on their way out the door.
I think monumental mistakes were made in getting us here, including hiring Lennon, but I do not believe that these guys deliberately blew it … they did everything they knew how to win the tenth title except that they stood by their man for way, way too long in the end.
Lennon bears the bulk of the responsibility for that shambolic season.
It’s no wonder that he’s now desperately trying to burnish his reputation in England, where his future lies. He knows he’s done in Scotland; what’s next for him here? Coaching at Ibrox? The Aberdeen job?
Ha! Celtic and Hibs won’t hire him again, and so it doesn’t leave much for him.
So this is really all about appealing to an English audience by disdaining this parochial wee village and all in it, but he’s only fooling himself if he thinks this is a strategy with a future.
The media down there was watching events up here much more closely than he thinks, and chairman south of the border have seen the way he alienated vast sections of our support before he left and they will be watching him now highly unimpressed.
Ten in a row was a fan obsession.
Of course it was. Lennon’s real problem was that he knows that his name is now forever tied to the failure, so of course it didn’t really matter, of course it was something that people put too much store in.
The point is idiotic. Everyone knows that it’s idiotic.
Lennon might want to come across as erudite and sophisticated and above the fray, but people know what it really is; a desperate scramble to deflect from his own failures. I doubt anyone who matters is buying it.